“Very much,” said Gage. He had come in quietly and stood looking at them in a kind of derisive anger. “I’m sorry to break in on your conference, and on this delightful exhibition of my wife’s loyalty but since we are all here, let’s talk it over.” He sat down elaborately, his eyes on Margaret, ignoring his wife fixedly. “Have you made up your mind what we should do, Miss Duffield?” “Don’t be insulting, Gage,” said Margaret, “it’s so unnecessary. I haven’t been interfering with your affairs any more than was necessary.” “Than was necessary to release Helen from the chains of marriage?” Gage laughed. “Well, your work is done. As far as I’m concerned she’s released. You may tell her, since you are in charge of our affairs, that I will leave her as soon as possible--and that is very soon--and that whatever financial arrangement is possible shall be made for her and the children. She is correct in saying that my affairs are in a bad way. Mr. Sable, from whom I have just separated in business, can tell her more about that. She might care to engage him to represent her in any action you might see fit for her to take.” Helen had risen to her feet, quite white. “Stop!” she cried. “Don’t you dare keep on insulting me. You’re mad--abnormal--” Gage bowed vaguely in her direction and continued speaking to Margaret. “Tell her that she is right. I am mad and abnormal and that she has made me so, instigated by you. Excuse me now, won’t you?” He went upstairs but he could hear through the floor the swift, staccato, shrieking sobs of Helen’s hysteria, hear the whisper of a maid to the nurse in the back hall, hear a murmur which must be the calming voice of Margaret. He paced viciously up and down--up and down. Yet he had come home, driven by an invigorating impulse which had come to him inexplicably, perhaps born of pity and sudden insight into Helen’s mind, come home to ask her forgiveness, explain what Freda Thorstad had told him and ask her to go away with him for a little while until their minds both cleared. The impulse had risen in his throat--it had choked him with delight and fear lest she should not be home. And then through the sunroom doors he saw them, two calm women, talking together, making and receiving confidences, uncovering him, dissecting him, and as he stood still and let the blackness of rage sweep over him again he had heard Helen tell this stranger, this inimical stranger, of his financial condition. The sense of outrage overmastered him. After a little it was quiet downstairs and he decided to go to the city again, going downstairs, looking straight ahead of him. He wanted to see the children, to have their reception of him ease this last sharp hurt. They were in the garden of course, and they greeted him with their usual shouts of delight. “Well,” he thought, as he bent down to caress them, “I can’t stop now. I can’t stop now.”